scholarly journals The nature of the semantic stimulus: the acquisition of every as a case study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezer Rasin ◽  
Athulya Aravind
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
First Finding ◽  
Hypothesis Space

AbstractWe evaluate the richness of the child’s input in semantics and its relation to the hypothesis space available to the child. Our case study is the acquisition of the universal quantifier every. We report two main findings regarding the acquisition of every on the basis of a corpus study of child-directed and child-ambient speech. Our first finding is that the input in semantics (as opposed to the input in syntax or phonology) is rich enough to systematically eliminate instances of the subset problem of language acquisition: overly general hypotheses about the meaning of every can violate pragmatic constraints, making such hypotheses incompatible with the child’s input. Our second finding is that the semantic input is too poor to eliminate instances of what we refer to as the superset problem, the mirror image of the subset problem. We argue that at least some overly specific hypotheses about the meaning of every are compatible with the child’s input, suggesting either that those hypotheses are not made available by UG or that non-trivial inductive biases are involved in children’s acquisition of every.

Rule Invention in the Acquisition of Morphology Revisited

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Camarata ◽  
Lisa Erwin
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Acoustic Parameters ◽  
Impaired Child ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Intensity Parameters ◽  
Suprasegmental Features ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Suprasegmental Cues

This paper presents a case study of a language-impaired child who signaled the distinction between English singular and plural using suprasegmental cues rather than the usual segmental form used within the parent language. Acoustic analyses performed within the first study in the paper revealed that the suprasegmental features used to maintain this distinction included various duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity parameters. Acoustic analyses Were also performed on a set of matched two- and four-item plural forms within a second study. The results of these analyses indicated that the same acoustic parameters were used to distinguish two-item plural forms from four-item plural forms. This case of linguistic creativity is offered as further evidence in support of the model of language acquisition that emphasizes the active role children take in the acquisition process. Additionally, the phonological, morphological, and psycholinguistic factors that may contribute to such rule invention are discussed.

The traceback method and the early constructicon: theoretical and methodological considerations

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Koch ◽  
Stefan Hartmann ◽  
Antje Endesfelder Quick
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Methodological Considerations ◽  
Language Corpus

AbstractUsage-based approaches assume that children’s early utterances are item-based. This has been demonstrated in a number of studies using the traceback method. In this approach, a small amount of “target utterances” from a child language corpus is “traced back” to earlier utterances. Drawing on a case study of German, this paper provides a critical evaluation of the method from a usage-based perspective. In particular, we check how factors inherent to corpus data as well as methodological choices influence the results of traceback studies. To this end, we present four case studies in which we change thresholds and the composition of the main corpus, use a cross-corpus approach tracing one child’s utterances back to another child’s corpus, and reverse and randomize the target utterances. Overall, the results show that the method can provide interesting insights—particularly regarding different pathways of language acquisition—but they also show the limitations of the method.

Migrants, Metaphors and Manipulation: a Multimodal Case Study of Trump’s Speeches on Immigration (2015-2017)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bérengère Lafiandra
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
The Third ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Linguistic Aspect

This article intends to analyze the use of metaphors in a corpus of Donald Trump’s speeches on immigration; its main goal is to determine how migrants were depicted in the 2016 American presidential election, and how metaphor manipulated voters in the creation of this image. This study is multimodal since not only the linguistic aspect of speeches but also gestures are considered. The first part consists in presenting an overview of the theories on metaphor. It provides the theoretical framework and develops the main tenets of the ‘Conceptual Metaphor Theory’ (CMT). The second part deals with multimodality and presents what modes and gestures are. The third part provides the corpus and methodology. The last part consists in the corpus study and provides the main source domains as well as other rhetorical tools that are used by Trump to depict migrants and manipulate voters.

Neuropsychological pattern in a child with a severe language-acquisition disorder: A ten-year follow-up case study

Aphasiology ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Chevrie-muller ◽  
Marie-Therese Le Normand
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition

scholarly journals How the people acquire language?: A case study on Virendra Language acquisition

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Tatu Zakiyatun Nufus ◽  
Atik Yuliani
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Know How ◽  
The People ◽  
Formal School ◽  
Descriptive Method ◽  
Share Information

The language acquisition process can be seen as a running parallel throughout a child’s life every day, it happened for every human who interacts with other people to share information since they were a child. It looks closely at the acquisition of the early age of Virendra, he was a child under 5 age who lives in the Sundanese environment and he is not familiar with English as a foreign language. Virendra was familiar with Arabic literature previously in his house, and he knows English in the formal school of his Playgroup up to now in kindergarten, the writer tried to report this case using a descriptive method. The data is collected while he was used the language in the school and how his parents influence his language acquisition in the house. And it is conducted to know how well Virendra’s comprehension in producing language. Beside it, this study is expected to the parents to lead the child in using language.

scholarly journals Through the Gloomy Vale: Underworld Alignments at Stonehenge

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Lionel Sims ◽  
David Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Landscape Model ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

Three recent independently developed models suggest that some Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments exhibit dual design properties in monument complexes by pairing obverse structures. Parker Pearson’s1 materiality model proposes that monuments of wood are paired with monuments of stone, these material metaphors respectively signifying places of rituals for the living with rituals for the dead. Higginbottom’s2 landscape model suggests that many western Scottish megalithic structures are paired in mirror-image landscape locations in which the horizon distance, direction and height of one site is the topographical reverse of the paired site – all in the service of ritually experiencing the liminal boundaries to the world. Sims’3 diacritical model suggests that materials, landscapes and lunar-solar alignments are diacritically combined to facilitate cyclical ritual processions between paired monuments through a simulated underworld. All three models combine in varying degrees archaeology and archaeoastronomy and our paper tests them through the case study of the late Neolithic/EBA Stonehenge Palisade in the Stonehenge monument complex.

scholarly journals Pemerolehan Bahasa dan Penggunaan Bahasa Anak Usia Sekolah Dasar

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tri Mahajani, Ruyatul Hilal Muhtar
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
English Language ◽  
School Level ◽  
Longitudinal Case Study ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
System A ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Learner Language ◽  
Descriptive Method

<p>Abstract. The present study aims to examine a description of language acquisition and its usage by pupils in their daily conversations. This study employed a longitudinal case study and applieda descriptive method, while it used a content analysis for the research technique. The resultrevealed a finding upon the young learner language acquisition and its usage, the language acquisition included Bahasa Indonesia, Javanese language, Sundanese language and English language. The uses of language for a system, a personal expression, and an interpersonal expression were broad good enough and were uttered structurally, however, mistakes were founded on applying structures and making meaning to language in use. To pupils whom are at elementary school level, they have acquired a range of language structure and its use for perfection. Their parents, teachers, and their society have any real and valuable<br />influence over them in the way language is structured and is used for exemplifying examples ofthe perfect language acquisition.</p>

scholarly journals Von Negation zu Domänensubtraktion

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Witzenhausen
Keyword(s):  
Stage I ◽  
Stage Ii ◽  
Stage Iii ◽  
Universal Quantifier ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Low German ◽  
Sentential Negation ◽  
Middle Low German

Abstract Middle Low German (MLG) underwent Jespersen’s Cycle, a change in the expression of sentential negation, whereby a preverbal marker ni (stage I) was adjoined by an adverbial niht (stage II) in the transition towards MLG, and was eventually replaced by it (stage III). In this article, I argue that the single preverbal particle ne/en in MLG became a marker of negation which is located syntactically higher, i. e. above the clause boundary, than the clause in which ne/en appears. This analysis is based on a corpus study investigating MLG exceptive clauses (English unless-clauses). Both on semantic and syntactic grounds, it is shown that these clauses can be explained as being complements of an operator that subtracts the proposition in the exceptive clause from the modal domain of a universal quantifier.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document